Category: Iraq

Iraqi oil sector expected to evolve rapidly on the back of a bilateral deal between the Kurdish and central government. UPI/Mohammed al Jumaily CALGARY, Alberta, Dec. 5 (UPI) — The market for crude oil produced in the Kurdish north of Iraq is evolving rapidly both in the domestic and foreign markets, an oil company executive said. Iraqi and Kurdish leaders this week brokered a deal breaking a simmering impasse over oil in the country. Both sides have been at odds over jurisdictional issues. Michael Ebsary, chief executive officer at Oryx Petroleum, said the progress made in settling longstanding issues in the Iraqi oil sector was very encouraging. "Such progress has many positive implications for sales of crude oil produced in the Kurdistan region to both export and domestic markets as well as for the fiscal stability and security of the Kurdistan region," he said in a Thursday statement. The […]

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Not only is OPEC refraining from cutting oil output to stem the five-month plunge in prices, it’s adding to the supply glut. Just five days after the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries decided to maintain production levels, Iraq, the group’s second-biggest member, inked an export deal with the Kurds that may add about 300,000 barrels a day to world supplies. In a global market that neighboring Kuwait estimates is facing a daily oversupply of 1.8 million barrels, the accord stands to deepen crude’s 38 percent plunge since late June. Or as Carsten Fritsch , a Frankfurt-based analyst at Commerzbank AG, put it: There’ll be “even more oil flooding the market that nobody needs.” Benchmark Brent crude slumped immediately after the deal was signed Dec. 2 in Baghdad , dropping 2.8 percent to $70.54 a barrel. Prices, which slipped 0.9 percent yesterday to reach the lowest since 2010, were at […]

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The Iraq Oil Ministry’s production accord with the Kurdistan Regional Government hasn’t resolved their U.S. court fight over a tanker of crude that has lingered off the Texas coast since July, a person familiar with the matter said. The tanker loaded with a million barrels of Kurdish crude went to sea before the deal was signed on Dec. 2. After a closed-door meeting yesterday with U.S. District Judge Gray Miller in Houston, Hal Watson, the KRG’s lead lawyer, declined to comment on whether the Kurds will keep trying to bring the stranded cargo into the U.S. Jim Loftis, Iraq’s lead lawyer, said he discussed the accord with the judge and KRG’s attorney. The Iraqi central government has been trying to seize the $100 million cargo of the United Kalavryta for more than four months to prevent the KRG from cracking U.S. oil markets. Energy companies have been reluctant to […]

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U.S. describes oil deal between Kurdish and Iraqi governments as a blow to Islamic State insurgents. Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers are pictured here taking up position against Islamic State militants on August 28, 2014. Photo by Mohammed al Jumaily/UPI WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 (UPI) — An Iraqi deal ending a simmering impasse over oil is an economic victory as well as a blow to Islamic State insurgents, the U.S. State Department said. Under the terms of an agreement reached earlier this week, around 250,000 barrels of oil per day are permissible for exports, while another 300,000 bpd will come from the disputed northern province of Kirkuk. Both sides will export their oil through the federal State Oil Marketing Organization, while the semiautonomous Kurdish government receives 17 percent of national oil revenues. Marie Harf, a spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department, said the agreement is in line with existing constitutional mandates and […]

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BAGHDAD — Iranian fighter jets struck extremist targets in Iraq recently, Iranian and American officials have confirmed, in the latest display of Tehran’s new willingness to conduct military operations openly on foreign battlefields rather than covertly and through proxies. The shift stems in part from Iran ’s deepening military role in Iraq in the war against the Sunni extremists of the Islamic State. But it also reflects a profound change in Iran ’s strategy, stepping from the shadows into a more overt use of hard power as it promotes Shiite influence around the region. Iranian and Pentagon officials acknowledged that Iran had stepped up its military operations in Iraq last week, using 1970s-era fighter jets to bomb targets in a buffer zone that extends 25 miles into Iraq. The new military approach highlights an unusual confluence of interests in both Iraq and Syria, where Tehran and Washington find themselves […]

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Iraq reached a deal with the Kurdish authorities on oil exports through Turkey , paving the way for increased shipments to international markets. The agreement allows the shipment of as much as 550,000 barrels a day of oil from northern Iraq to the port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean along a pipeline operated by the Kurds, Safeen Dizayee, a spokesman for the Kurdish Regional Government, said today by phone. The deal will entrench the supply surplus on the oil market, according to BNP Paribas SA. The KRG has been shipping crude to Turkey this year in defiance of the central government. The government of former Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki initiated legal action to block sales, leaving tankers loaded with Kurdish oil stranded at sea. The nation exported its first cargo of Kirkuk crude last week since shipments were halted this year, according to a loading plan obtained by Bloomberg […]

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Dec. 2 (Bloomberg) — Bloomberg Businessweek’s Matthew Philips discusses U.S. oil production in the wake of declining oil prices. He speaks on “Bloomberg Surveillance.” (Source: Bloomberg) West Texas Intermediate and Brent crudes fell after the Iraqi government and Kurdish authorities reached an agreement that paves the way for increased oil exports. WTI dropped for the fifth time in six days. The deal allows the shipment of 300,000 barrels a day of Iraqi Kirkuk blend to Turkey’s Mediterranean port of Ceyhan along a pipeline operated by the Kurds, Safeen Dizayee, a spokesman for the Kurdish Regional Government, said today by phone. Iraq is OPEC’s second-biggest oil producer. OPEC may hold an emergency meeting in the first quarter of 2015, Venezuela ’s Foreign Minister Rafael Ramirez said in an interview with Panorama newspaper. Oil has collapsed into a bear market amid the highest U.S. output in more than three decades and […]

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Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi agrees to deal ending long impasse over Kurdish oil to the praise of the United Nations. (RedWolf343/CC/Wikimedia Commons) BAGHDAD, Dec. 2 (UPI) — The U.N. special envoy to Iraqi said Tuesday an agreement between the Kurdish and federal government is a turning point for the country’s oil sector. The Iraqi federal government confirmed a deal with the semiautonomous Kurdistan Regional Government ends a long impasse over oil exports . "I look forward for the implementation of the agreement as swiftly as possible, including oil exports from the Kurdish region and Kirkuk, as well as the disbursement of the KRG budget from the Iraqi general budget," envoy Nickolay Mladenov said in a statement. Word of a breakthrough surfaced last month when both sides agreed to an interim solution to an oil row brewing at least since the implementation of an Iraqi constitution in 2006. That […]

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Tuesday’s agreement is testament to the new national unity forged under Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider… ENLARGE Tuesday’s agreement is testament to the new national unity forged under Iraq’s Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. Reuters The Iraq government has agreed on an oil export deal with the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan, according to Iraqi state television and a Kurdish lawmaker, potentially ending a years-long political impasse that has divided the country. Under the new agreement, which comes into effect on Jan. 1, Kurdistan will export 250,000 barrels of oil a day while the disputed province of Kirkuk will sell 300,000 barrels a day, said Abdel Qadr Mohammed, a Kurdish member of the Iraqi parliament’s finance committee, who participated in the negotiations. Both regions would export through Iraq’s national oil company, the State Organization for Marketing of Oil, or SOMO. It marks a victory for Iraq’s central government which has long sought […]

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BAGHDAD — In a far-reaching deal that helps reunite Iraq in the face of a bitter war with Islamic extremists, the central government agreed on Tuesday to a long-term pact with the autonomous Kurdish region to share the country’s oil wealth and military resources. The deal settles a long dispute between Baghdad and Erbil, the Kurdish capital in the north, over oil revenues and budget payments. It is also likely to halt a drive — at least in the short term — by the Kurds for an independent state, which appeared imminent this past summer after a violent territory grab by Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. As the jihadists marched toward Baghdad in June, routing Iraqi Army forces, the Kurds took full control of Kirkuk and its rich oil fields. And they intensified efforts to market Kurdish oil independently, arguing that the government had withheld payments […]

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